He suppressed even his customary snickers at my
clumsiness. Perhaps chortling was too akin to speech.
"Shalev" - I said - "why have you stopped talking? Why don't you laugh
anymore? Why the silence?"
He flings a pair of agitated dice at me. I groan as I pick them off the
gooey floor.
"Listen" - I persisted - "I have an idea." An involuntary twitch
betrayed his interest.
"Why don't you write what you have to say? We will prepare a stack of
small cards here and you could jot on them to your heart's content."
"What cannot be said in words, can sometimes be expressed in letters."
Shalev froze and for a minute there I thought I lost him. Then he
nodded his head excitedly. I abandoned him and his victory over me and
bolted outside, into the greying drizzle. I crossed two lanes muddied
by steamy kitchen waste and absconded with a pack of printing paper
from the library. Hiding them under my tattered blemished coat, I
hasted to the laundry room.
Shalev arranged the pieces in two equidimensional towers of alternating
black and white. I proudly presented my paper loot. We used a ruler and
scissors to divide them into squares. And all that protracted time I
prayed that Shalev will not devolve from verbal to written taciturnity.
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